Whistles of Death

CNN article on the recreation of Aztec ‘Whistles of Death’.

“If death had a sound, this was it.

Roberto Velazquez believes the Aztecs played this mournful wail from the so-called Whistles of Death before they were sacrificed to the gods.

The 66-year-old mechanical engineer has devoted his career to recreating the sounds of his pre-Columbian ancestors, producing hundreds of replicas of whistles, flutes and wind instruments unearthed in Mexico’s ruins.”

Article includes a short demo of the sounds.

After I obtain one of these and a Tibetan thighbone trumpet, I’m starting a band and giving Marilyn Manson a run for his money.

Yeah yeah, I know. Jhonn Balance, David Tibet and Genesis P-Orridge already played one on Dreams Less Sweet…

Bravo España!

Not only did Spain win Euro 2008….

But the Spanish parliament has approved a motion recognizing the rights of Great Apes to life, freedom, and not to be tortured, in compliance with the Great Apes Project.

This is unequivocally positive news.

If you want to know why this is important, watch this documentary on cruelty to animals and great apes especially in the entertainment business. Or please revisit Jane Goodall’s work or go take even an introductory course in primatology.

Two things: I still marvel at the chauvinism of the human species towards their closest evolutionary relatives. But then, we don’t manage to treat our own species very kindly, let alone others. Don’t think those two patterns of behaviours are not deeply linked.

Which would bring me to the other point, that some will take offense to giving ‘rights’ to non-humans. This is nonsense borne of a refusal to really face how closely related we are.

Lily Allen vs the BNP

So my future wife Lily Allen has released a pop song dis of the racist British National Party, called ‘Guess Who Batman?’.

While it’s not by any means a nuanced critique of xenophobia, it remains kind of awesome.

Besides, when it comes to these boneheads a simple ‘fuck you’ is about all you need.

Oh, and I don’t plan on linking to a white supremacist site, but try searching this story and ‘Stormfront’ and check out the spin that those boneheads put on said story, ie: “Former drug dealer Lily Allen makes anti-BNP song”.

PS: Nazi punks fuck off.

PPS: Marry me, Lily…

George Carlin RIP

Nothing too verbose today, but I’ll share a couple favourite clips from George Carlin covering such trivial matters as time and religion.

RIP sir.

State run

It’s strange how my more socialist stripes come out sometimes. Sort of.

Some good news regarding the film industry in Canada. The Senate has amended a bill which would have essentially given the government power to deny funding to film projects it deemed ‘against the public interest’. In effect, being that the current government has a number of kooky religious types in it’s midst, this would have been a leverage tool to promote family values pap (read: propaganda) and pushing out more cutting edge, progressive, and experimental film projects.

Which brings me to the irony. The party that pushed this bill was elected. The Senate is appointed and currently has a majority from the opposition party. Therefore it was the appointed segment of government that upheld the rights of free expression against the party elected by the people.

Now, keep in mind there are serious issues with just how representative the Canadian system really is. But proportional representation is a whole other kettle of fish.

I know there are libertarian objections to any government having any say in the production of cultural artifacts such as films, whether that is through censorship or through funding. These folks would have the market decide things, I suppose.

I’m not opposed to getting the government entirely out of the picture, but we should be talking grass-roots productions and community support. Even then though, resources are often scarce for idiosyncratic visions.

Here is where at least for myself, I experience a higher standard of cultural production from the state-run rather than the market-run institutions in Canada.

In recent weeks I have been re-introduced to the train wreck that is commercial radio, through my current place of employment. The same ten songs or so have echoed in continuous rotation dozens and dozens (and yet more dozens) of times. Coupled with inane and unlistenable commercials, it really is a chore to digest any of it.

Okay well, the atrocity that is commercial radio is self-evident. But it is also a product of the market as it functions in effect, not in theory.

Public and campus radio offer nooks and crannies to discover, items to offend and challenge and inform and soothe and pretty much do anything but turn your mind off.

Dirty state-run commie radio.

As a side note, let this also be a warning as certain public broadcasters continue to tread deeper into corporate territory, courting a fictional youth demographic at the expense of long-standing quality programming.

Just stop. Please.

I still lament the loss of Brave New Waves, I admit it.

So yes… the irony is, unelected senators do good and state-run media provide content far more engaging and critical than most commercial outlets. In Canada, I’m pretty sure that’s all commercial outlets.

I have not touched on web-based media, of course. Another topic for another time, but the anarchic potential of the Web is duly noted, if not expanded upon for now.

Nature is Fun!

Right so, care of the folks at yonder Boing Boing, I’ve been introduced to the absolutely fantastic art of Carlos Ramos.

Evokes this wonderful child-like sense of awe and adventure inherent in the natural world. Ah, maybe that’s too academic. Just try browsing this gallery without cracking a smile or blurting out “awesome!”

Everybody dance!

The Kooky Scientist - O.L.D. vs. N.E.A.U.

Endlosung

“It is readily acknowledged that Indian children by habituating so closely in the residential schools, and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages.

But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is geared towards the final solution of our Indian Problem.“

-Department of Indian Affairs Superintendent Duncan Campbell Scott, April 10th, 1910.

“What happens to a Russian, to a Czech does not interest me in the slightest. What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type, we will take, if necessary by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only in so far as we need them as slaves for our Kultur; otherwise, it is of no interest to me.“

-Heinrich Himmler, Posen speech revealing the Final Solution, October 6th, 1943.

I have yet to encounter a direct correlation between the use of terms, and I’m not looking for one. Language betrays intent, and colonial ‘civilizing’ attitudes are at the core of all historical examples of one culture evaluating another’s worth through their own ethnocentric prisms.

It isn’t uncommon to see people ruffle their feathers at the notion that Canada might be implicated in a genocide. And yet, what then, would the residential school policy amount to?

Today, the Government of Canada officially apologized for the policy of residential schools that decimated cultures, languages and families over almost two centuries. The word genocide was conspicuously absent from the record.

It was an important apology, to be sure. Important for First Nations and for all Canadians. But it rings hollow if not backed up by concrete action on the real effects of this historical policy here and now.

To quote a friend:

“It just rings hollow… native communities still don’t have clean water to drink (kashechewan). Thanks for caring, but why are you saying there’s no money to build a school in attawapiskat, where the children have none? We were wrong, but kaneseta:ke, caledonia & ipperwash still happen. You acknowledge how it affects natives & native families today, but why doesn’t the RCMP give a shit about the 500+ missing & murdered native women? Why are aboriginal people disproportionately represented in our nation’s prisons? Why does Canada consistently vote against the UN’s declaration of the rights of indigenous peoples?”

I’ll add to that the fierce racism that is still prevalent in Canadian society towards Aboriginal peoples, most often exemplified by that vicious stereotype of the ‘drunken lazy native’ who blames their problems on things that happened to their ancestors ‘hundreds of years ago’.

No. Not hundreds of years ago. But still.

Jinyoung Shin

Care of the folks at Technoccult.

If someone channeled the ghost of Egon Schiele through the prism of anime, one might conceivably result in the work of Jinyoung Shin.

Skeletal figure geometries, rock n roll, fairy tales. Not all of it is my cup of tea but nevertheless amazing.

Ah yes, I suppose Aeon Flux also created a similar aesthetic, although not as heavy on the anime facial conventions.

God is in the banana

Every so often I am bombarded by evidence that no one is imparting even the most basic level of scientific understanding to the general public, and especially not to children. I can’t count the number of times an acquaintance has blurted out that they don’t ‘believe’ in evolution. Or are offended that I would espouse the view that ‘we came from chimps’. Since I am versed in the Judeo-Christian story of creation, as well as many others, I always find myself asking these folks to explain their understanding of evolutionary principles. Without fail, they are unable to explain how it works, only that they know it is ‘wrong’ or ‘offensive’ to think we came from ‘the slime’ or ‘the monkeys’.

These conversations betray so much. The horrible levels of scientific literacy, the lazy thinking involved, the way evolution has been framed and indoctrinated in these people as ignoble or demeaning without any consideration of the wonder and awe involved in contemplating physical and biological forces at work in the organic world.

In one recent instance, someone very honestly stated that they couldn’t buy into this crazy monkey argument. I responded with a basic explanation of cell division, mutation, speciation, and natural selection over time. All of these very basic principles of biology. Said person responded that that made very clear sense and that no one, least of all anyone in the educational system, had ever bothered with such an explanation.

It was innocent and basic ignorance, but it left me dumbfounded that no one had bothered teaching these essential concepts.

Worse than ignorance though, are the quacks who push religion as science in the form of Intelligent Design and Creationism.

And with that, I present a comedic finale.

Apparently I am extraordinarily late to the party and this clip has already made many rounds about the Internet, but here you go, the banana as proof of a Creator:

And there is nothing remotely sexual about that clip. Not at all.